A Love Found is a Love Now Lost
by MetalChickCrisis2040
Summary: After losing Richard, Kahlan can't find reason to go on.


**Title: **A Love Found is a Love Now Lost

**Pairing:** Richard/Kahlan

**Rating:** PG-13

**Summary:** After losing Richard, Kahlan can't find reason to go on.

**Authors Notes:** Yet another, OMG! I know, right? Damn shorts! Legendland, as per usual these days! More angsty than anything so I hope you like! ;)

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><p>She sat before the fire a cold, distant shell of the woman she had been the day before.<p>

Cara and Zedd had thankfully been quiet and remained observant, giving her the space she required.

She wasn't sure when she would be able to look at them again, not for the fact that her heart hurt so much, her pain was her own.

She chose to love him even when she knew she shouldn't. Confessors weren't allowed to love, and even though she had always known why, said reason seemed only more valid now that _he_ was gone. The power she had known since birth, the very birthright of her existence surged a painful reminder not only of what she had lost, but what she had never had. And the one person capable of quelling the storm that raged within was gone.

A single tear slipped down her cheek.

If only she had never opened her heart, if only he had never looked at her with such beautiful eyes, so optimistic, and stubborn to the fact that they could never be. He was always so adamant, so assured and reassuring, and she had been a fool to believe in the hope he offered.

Because look at where it had gotten her.

The fire danced, heat licking at the cold but still her skin remained chilled. She felt so alone now, and the sight of the flames before her reminded her of the pyre, and she couldn't...

"Maybe it's best you get some rest, dear one." Zedd's voice is unwanted, and Kahlan pays him no mind as she gathers Richard's blanket and pulls it tighter around her form. It takes effort to stand without the crutch she's so used to sitting beside her. It's alien not to look over and find his concerned features so bright in the moons light, nor the look of love.

But instead, when her gaze slips to her side, where _he_ had always been, she finds space. An empty, dark space reminding her of the love she had and the love she lost.

She can't bring herself to look at Zedd and Cara as she makes to leave the safety of their camp and any effort on their part to reach out to her is deflected harshly.

She doesn't want anything to do with them because they weren't there.

They hadn't been there to protect her Seeker. Kahlan could always count on Richard to have her back, and she had failed to question who would be there to have his while he had hers. It never dawned on her that Zedd or Cara may not be there, they were assumed to be. Expected to be, and damnit, they should have been.

She can feel the tears now, stinging her eyes but the feeling does not match the intense constricting agony that swirls in her chest, clutching her heart, threatening to rip it out.

She doesn't know where she is going, only that she needs space. She needs to get away from the familiar because nothing seems right without him.

Kahlan stumbles as she sobs, painfully aware of her weakened state, and numbly obvious to the fact that she wishes more than anything for a horde of banelings to attack.

She thinks she can manage a few. She thinks she hates herself for the way she wishes these things, wishes for failure. Wishes for death so that she might join her Seeker in the Underworld.

But the world is not yet safe, her people need her. And duty suddenly becomes the bane of her existence once more.

Curled beneath the protective foliage of a wayward pine, Kahlan wraps Richard's scent around her and cries.

She misses his smile, his embrace. She misses his courage and the way he always felt so near. She can't feel him now, and it's far more agonizing than she ever imagined.

She was a Confessor, and she shouldn't have fallen in love, but she did, and she loves him even now. She loves him more each second, and the fact that he isn't here to return the feelings he's always promised, hurts more than anything. She thinks she might die from the loss alone, and she's fine with that.

But the Keeper... And her people...

But her heart... and her Richard...

She had to do this, she had to let go.

_But she can't._


End file.
